Woman released after questions about abuse case

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A woman convicted 20 years ago for engaging in ritual child abuse was released on bond Tuesday after the district attorney's office agreed the only physical evidence against her was faulty.

Fran Keller's attorney, Keith Hampton, said he hopes to gain her husband's release next week and eventually prove his clients' innocence. A jury convicted Fran and Dan Keller in 1992 after therapists testified that they helped three children recover memories of satanic rituals and sexual abuse at a preschool Fran Keller operated.

The only physical evidence came from an emergency room doctor who testified that internal lacerations on one child were evidence of abuse. But in court documents filed earlier this year, Dr. Michael Mouw says what he thought were lacerations were actually normal physiology.

The couple were sentenced to 48 years each, but both have always maintained their innocence. Prosecutors put two constables on trial in connection with the Keller case, but the judge dismissed those charges a year after the Kellers were convicted.

"The case was a true witch hunt because the investigators actually believed that this was part of a wide satanic conspiracy," Hampton said. He said the therapist's techniques - which were used to convince the children, parents and investigators that the Kellers committed human sacrifices, flew the children to Mexico and dismembered human bodies in cemeteries - have been debunked.

Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg issued a statement saying she agreed to release the Kellers on bond after learning of Mouw's testimony.

"I agreed that there is a reasonable likelihood that his false testimony affected the judgment of the jury," she said. "The Court of Criminal Appeals will review both cases. No further action or decisions on the case will be made until that review is finalized."

A judge still has to sign off on Dan Keller's release. Hampton said he did not expect prosecutors to seek a retrial.

The jury convicted the Kellers after prosecutors obtained convictions in similar cases in California, Massachusetts and Florida that gained national attention. Convictions in many of those cases have been overturned or prosecutors have petitioned to vacate the cases.

Hampton said after both of the Kellers are released, he will file court papers to have them exonerated and declared innocent. Fran Keller is 63, and Dan Keller will turn 72 this week.

In the appeal he filed in January, Hampton accused the Austin police of withholding evidence that would have cleared the Kellers and said the judge allowed prosecutors to introduce unscientific psychological evidence at trial by an unqualified witness.

Four San Antonio women imprisoned for sexually assaulting two girls in 1994 were freed last week after a judge agreed with their defense attorney and prosecutors that their 1998 convictions for sexual assault should not stand due to faulty expert testimony. In that case, another doctor recanted her testimony that what she thought were internal injuries indicating sexual abuse were actually anatomically normal.Click here for more news on AOL.com

I'm surprised anyone would run a day care center or teach after this kind of nightmare. Remember that day care in California where the owners were accused of drugging children and making child pornography? And none of it was true.

Yes, I remember that nightmare - the McMartin pre-school. Dozens of adults went to prison for years because of accusations from kids, each new accusation more gruesome and outrageous than the last. After the kids started accusing the District Attorney's prosecutor staff of outrageous abuses, the DA finally got a clue - yuh think those kids could be just making this stuff up for attention??? Too late, dozens of people's lives are ruined forever. Not much has changed since the Salem witch trials...

As many have commented, there is a problem with Prosecutors hungry for spotlight in media saturated cases like this. However, these fake cases would never have made it to Prosecutors in the first place were it not for idiotic therapists.

The therapists seek self importance by feeding children with fantasies. Common sense dictates that children will listen, enraptured, if you say, "Did your teacher take you on a flying saucer to Mexico? What did you see?" Of course the kids will pick up the thread and make up all kinds of fantastical sights to please you. It's called child-like imagination.

The entire notion of "recovered memories" translates to "fabricated memories" and it's a dangerous business. You want revenge on your ex-husband? Simply "recover" a memory of him being a demon who molests children.

Therapists concocted this whole "recovered memory" syndrome in the 1980's when our culture was ripe for it. It grew in tangent with our culture of victimology and TV talks shows that made you famous based on your degrees of victimhood -- "Give me the microphone! I deserve it because I'm a bigger victim than you are!"

I'm pleased to see the theory of "recovered memory" being debunked. Still, it's too little too late. Some of the people from the California nursery school are still in jail (I believe it was the McMann case?). The grandmother and daughter were released, but they still have the husband in jail. His crime? He flew through children's windows and danced around a fire while molesting children with his mother and wife. Ugh.

I happen to have known the doctor who incited this case 25 years ago. Dr. JudyAnn Densen-Gerber (who's dead now), was a dreadful woman who ran a cult of her own at Phoenix House Rehab. Addicts cleaned her house and cooked her dinner as "therapy." When her husband, a coroner, divorced her she accused him of dissecting bodies on her kitchen table. Since her husband was rich he could hire the right lawyers to fight it. But others not so rich were destroyed. Imagine, an entire adult family went to prison for innocently running a daycare center.

Yeah, I remember following the McMartin case - if I remember correctly it started off sounding like a "run of the mill" molestation case, but once they got started it quickly seemed to become a contest to see who could come up with the most fantastical stories to convince these kids to tell, rapidly snowballing into a modern-day Salem Witch Trial in more ways than one...

the modern day Witch Hunts... nothing different then Salem... false quick to judge for all the wrong reasons... no logic and ridiculous evidence to steal freedom.... just wait till the powers that be start pulling us all in on false evidence which now that they can manufacture...unfortunately we won';t be as lucky as these people.

because the pay isn't up to standard of what people can get working for private companies. i struggle to survive on under market value for a masters (library science), because the retirement package (if it's still around when I retire in another 40 years), is good, and it's the only choice for a public librarian in my area...we don't value mental health workers in this country anyway, so of course they are among the criminally underpaid.

Howdy folks, If ya really would like to know what happens behind those grey walls of a county pre-trial detention simply as a corrections officer.I personally know of two gentlemen who were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.

Luckily, Mr. Lee and Mr. Townsend who both resided on Florida's death row were released from custody. What would society have said if either or both men were murdered by the State of Florida, probably nothing.

I forgot to mention that Mr. Lee's close friend, Mr. Pitts was also sentenced to death but luckily released before Ol Sparky was fired up, cooking these innocent men.

Three men were arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to death for nothing they did wrong but because of society's mentality in one case and alleged corrupt homicide detectives in the other case.

Corrections Officers see and hear things every day that our society never gets to see or hear. Most all officers know that our jail/prisons contain innocent men & women but most Inmates/Convicts will never be exonerated.

Our judicial system is full of faults but sometimes someone cares and justice is challenged and an innocent citizen is freed from the big business of Corrections.

This case is a disgrace. Didn't this happen about twenty years ago in another case in Claifornia ( ? Huntington Beach) where an entire family was prosecuted because of the same probing of tots by an incompetent therapist and excess prosecutorial zeal. I hope the doctor who gave false testimony is held civilly negligent and everyone else involved in manipulating these children's mind get what they deserve…prison.

It was the McMartin pre-school case. Same accusations: Satanic rites, killing animals etc; all confirmed by the therapist. KEE MCFARLAND after in depth interviews with the kids. The case was a major scandal, and the folks in posh Huntington Beach were out for blood., McFraland became a media darling (along with her co-therapist I think) and I think got a book deal. The truth finally dribbled out - McFarland's technique was to suggest to these pre-schoolers scenarios of what happened, manipulating them into repeating her suggestions as truth. Hell, they were little kids, easy subjects. and one by one the McMartin family was cleared - but it took years and they were ruined. This was a landmark case in that the "expert" was totally inept and the prosecutors took her word for the truth. Guess Texas didn't get the memo.